On behalf of the board of directors of the Iranian Canadian Congress, I am
writing to raise a number of issues of critical concern to the Iranian-Canadian
community. The establishment of ICC was two years in the making and benefited
from the tireless efforts of some of the most distinguished members of the
Iranian-Canadian community. Today we have over 500 members, and our membership
is growing. Our community has been alarmed by the suboptimal quality of service
provided to our relatives, colleagues, and friends by your ministry's staff at
the Canadian embassy in Tehran. We have received numerous complaints about the
lack of respect with which visa applicants are treated, and the rapid downturn
in the number of visas that are issued.

In particular, we have been informed that the majority of invitees to three
significant academic and cultural events in Canada have been turned away,
preventing them from making what would have been important contributions to
intercultural and academic dialogue in Canada. This trend is especially
troubling since the majority of the cultural and academic programs damaged by
the visa restrictions, are funded by the Canadian government.

900 people sign petition decrying Ottawa's denial of
visitors' visas for their family members in Iran

An Iranian-Canadian grad student at
the University of Toronto has collected 900 signatures in just a few
weeks from people like her whose families have been refused visas to
visit. And the Iranian Canadian Congress says it's time to make it
an election issue.

The first of these events was the Tirgan Iranian Festival, which was held at
Harbourfront Centre in Toronto on July 17-20. The Harbourfront Centre, as you
know, receives the bulk of its funding from the Federal Government. This
festival was the largest festival of its kind in the history of the Iranian
diaspora and was financially supported by the Department of Canadian Heritage,
Ontario's Ministry of Tourism, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts
Council, among others. Many of the key invitees to the event, who are among
Iran's leading artists and performers, were denied visas, despite having
invitations from the festival's organizers and from Harbourfront Centre. The
second main event of the Iranian community this summer was the bi-annual
conference of the International Society of Iranian Studies, which was held at
Toronto's Park Hyatt Hotel on July 31-August 2.We have been informed by this
event's organizers that, similarly, a number of Iran's most distinguished
scholars, who had official invitations from the University of Toronto and the
conference organizers, have been denied visas and therefore cannot attend the
event.

Finally, we have been informed about similar policies regarding the 5th
International Reunion of Sharif University of Technology Association held on
August 1-4 2008 in Vancouver, BC, Sharif University, as you know, is Iran's
leading centre for science and engineering education. We have been saddened to
discover that here, too, your ministry has imposed collective punishment on some
of the most distinguished members of Iran's scientific community and their
interlocutors in Canada. We feel that our relatives, friends and colleagues in
Iran should not fall victim to political squabbles.

We would like to request a meeting with you and your staff to discuss the
criteria your ministry's representatives in Tehran use to grant or deny visas to
applicants who have official invitations from reputable Canadian institutions,
and are invited for short visits to Canada.

Please let us know when you can meet with ICC representatives to discuss
these issues.